TIME TO DOCK POINT FOR TOWEL RANTS
FERNANDO VERDASCO is, in elite tennis terms, rather mediocre. His highest ranking was seventh in 2009, the same year he progressed to the semi-final of the Australian open, his deepest run in any Grand slam event. Now ranked 28, Verdasco has reached the last eight at Wimbledon once, the last eight at the Us open twice and has never got further than the fourth round at the French open. He has been a successful and gifted Davis Cup player for spain, but with a Grand slam winning percentage of 63 per cent, is not destined to remain long in the memory. Unless he succeeds, inadvertently, in getting the rules around ball kids changed. playing at the shenzhen open in China last week, Verdasco’s behaviour towards a ball boy ordered to fetch his towel was so abysmal, it has provoked an outcry on social media — and significantly from within the game, too. A clip that quickly went viral shows Verdasco indicating to a ball boy to bring the towel, draped over the arm of a line judge’s chair. The boy scuttles off but has to shuffle around the line judge, who is standing awaiting the next point. This split-second delay is clearly too much for Verdasco, who shouts at the boy and makes the hurry up gesture with his hands. even after the boy has delivered the towel, he is still behaving aggressively towards him, and gestures a second time. The admonished young man stands with his hands obediently behind his back, taking his public humiliation. Judy Murray was among those unimpressed. Tweeting a link to the footage, and copying in the WTA and ATp World Tour, she asked: ‘What about a rule that makes players get their own towels? And the ball kids just look after the tennis balls?’ Great Britain’s Federation Cup captain Anne Keothavong was equally dismissive, adding: ‘I can’t stand this.’ Fortunately, we may not have to tolerate it much longer. At the Next Gen ATp Finals in November, featuring the best Under 21 players in the world, towel rails are to be trialled. Let us hope the age of servitude is then soon over. Ball boys, ball girls, are not players’ lackeys and should never be treated as such. Indeed, had Verdasco been forced to surrender a point, or even an entire game for his behaviour, the problem could be eradicated overnight. It is very easily solved, this one.